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How To Taper Off Methadone – The Correct Way!

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Society believes that recovering addicts on methadone maintenance will be on methadone forever.

For some, this is true. Some people have no problem with being on methadone for the rest of their life. In reality, who can blame them? Being dependant on methadone is a much better alternative to supporting an out of control heroin addiction every day.

Then, there are those who want to follow a treatment plan and taper off methadone in a designated amount of time.

For everybody’s information, there is NO SUCH THING as a “one fits all” treatment plan that every person follows when it comes to weaning off of methadone.

Stabilizing Your Methadone Dose

The first step in being in methadone maintenance treatment is to stabilize your methadone dose. A therapist, methadone doctor, and medical staff will work with you and together you will be on a stable amount of methadone.

Typically, it takes a few months to work this out. You will have, to be honest with the doctor and your therapist.

Tell them how you feel.

Whether or not you are physically experiencing cravings.

Let them know how well you are functioning.

Are you tired and sluggish? Do you not want to get off the couch all day? Do you notice yourself nodding out as if you were high?

All of these factors need to be taken into account when adjusting your dose.

When people first begin going to a methadone clinic, it is usual for them to still be using heroin until their dose is high enough to prevent them from going through withdrawal.

The goal is not to use any other drugs with your methadone. The faster you get to this point, the better.

You must be honest with yourself, your therapist, and the doctor. The better the staff is able to access the situation, the quicker you will be able to become stable on methadone. You can’t begin to work on other issues until the main problem is corrected.

Maintenance Period

Once stable, the maintenance period begins. After all, it is called methadone maintenance treatment. The maintenance period begins once you are on a stable dose of methadone. A stable dose entails the following:

No physical withdrawal symptoms

Able to function

Not tired

No feelings of euphoria

Holds a person 24-36 hours before feeling the effects of not having it

No mood swings, irritability

No sleepless nights

After you are at a stable dose, it is time to begin the actual maintenance period. The maintenance period is when you truly start to work on your recovery. You are MAINTAINING SOBRIETY.

Throughout the maintenance period, you will also deal with the wreckage of the past. This will be an ongoing process that simply becomes a part of your life. As time goes on, you will learn how to cope and handle the issues without wanting to use heroin or other drugs.

Your life will slowly but surely begin to improve. Once you maintain your sobriety and begin to easily manage your life, you will feel better. Better about yourself and better about your situation. You will look back in amazement at how far you have come.

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How To Lower Your Dosage

Now that you got your recovery under control and you have built a solid foundation. Your cravings are few and far between. To everyone’s surprise, you have done it. You not only have your family back, you may have even begun your own family. Little kids running around, you love your life. Every week you receive a paycheck from your job. You took care of your legal situation. Everything is going well. Then it happens. The question that is on everyone’s mind.

Are you going to be on methadone forever?

Bam, wake up call!

You haven’t been giving it much thought with all the success that you have been able to achieve since you began MMT. You don’t plan on being on methadone forever but, you have no clue how long it will take to detox.

Or maybe you really don’t care if you are on it forever. Hell, it’s a much better decision than the latter. Despite what others may think.

The horror stories of methadone detox begin to fill your head. While they may be nothing more than methadone myths but, who really knows? The logical answer is to discuss lowering your methadone dose with your counselor.

To Each His Own

When you address this issue with your counselor, you decide that it is time to begin lowering your methadone dose.

There is no specific way to go about this. The correct way is to taper off of methadone safe and slowly. You can not designate a specific amount of time it will take you or how long you decide to be on MMT. Methadone Maintenance is a long-term treatment. The National Institute for Drug Abuse recommends being on methadone for at least one year. Most people are on it much longer. Some do not plan on ever tapering off of methadone. Their life has improved and they feel comfortable with the way it is.

People fear to lower their methadone dose. They do not want to become physically sick or experience any withdrawal symptoms. Others are scared that they might even relapse if their methadone dose is too low.

Every clinic is different but, they will only lower your dose by so much at a time. Typically it’s a maximum of either 5 mg or 10 mg.

Yet, when people are slowly tapering off of methadone, they go lower than that. A few milligrams here and there and stop if you feel uncomfortable is the advice medical staff gives one who wants to get off of methadone completely.

There are different reasons people decide to lower their methadone dose.

Some simply don’t want to be on methadone forever.

Parents want to be off of methadone by the time their children begin school.

Being on methadone could be putting a halt on your career.

Some pay out-of-pocket and simply can’t afford it anymore.

Others are sick of having to abide by their clinic rules.

How & Why I Lower My Methadone Dose

The reasoning is endless. My personal agenda is for a variety of reasons.

I want to be done by the time my kids go to school.

It’s putting a halt on our dreams because we can’t travel and need to for career purposes.

Want to relocate and there is no clinic anywhere even close to where we want to live.

All of these factors combined with my success in treatment corroborated my initial thought of lowering my methadone dose so I can begin the tapering process.

Here is my personal way of tapering. I began to decrease shortly after my last child was born. In less than a year I have cut my dosage in half without any withdrawal symptoms, sleeplessness, or irritability. It was easy as can be. This is how I do it.

Decrease by 2 mg a week for 5 weeks. That’s a total decrease of 10 mg. (ex. If my goal is to go from 100 to 90 mg, I will do so in 5 weeks by decreasing 2 mg a week)

Then, I stop for a few weeks, maybe a month or two if need be and let my body catch up.

Continue with this method and stop when need be.

Repeat this process over and over again.

Deciding Factors When Tapering

When I say I let my body catch up, this is what I mean.

Methadone stores in your fat cells.

As you decrease, you are physically ingesting less methadone so, your body is using the methadone that is stored in your fat cells. Your body must balance out again so, it’s equal to the amount you take daily and the amount your body stores in reserves.

This is also why people don’t feel the maximum effects of methadone withdrawal for weeks after they stop using methadone.

A person’s metabolism is also a deciding factor.

Some people metabolize methadone faster than others. While the standard patient is on a daily dose of methadone. There are those people who are medically proven to have super fast metabolisms.

These select people receive split doses. This means if they are on 200 mg of methadone a day. They take 100 mg in the morning and 100 mg in the evening because if they take the full amount in the morning, it doesn’t hold them until their next dose and they will start to withdrawal because their body metabolizes it faster than others.

As you can see, everyone is different. Everyone’s needs are different. This is why you have an individual treatment plan. Each individual needs individual treatment, even when tapering.

The only factor that is the same for everyone is when you decide it’s time to start tapering down,you must do it slowly and correctly.

I taper down 2 mg a week for 5 weeks and stop for a month.

A friend of mine lowers her methadone dose by 3 mg every 2 months.

Another person goes down 1 mg a week for 10 weeks.

They are all different yet, the similar trait is they all lower their methadone dose slowly and consistently.

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Final Verdict

Deciding to lower your methadone dose is a personal choice.

You have your own individual treatment plan that is suited to your specific needs. You must be on a stable methadone dose, apply the recovery footwork to maintaining sobriety and treatment, and then correctly taper.

If and when you choose to taper off methadone, do what is right for you. Not what the girl sitting next to you in line does. No one will taper the exact same way. It’s like recovery, it doesn’t matter how you get there as long as you get there.

People who choose to taper off of methadone have the same ultimate goal. They simply take different paths to get there. It depends on your own body and mind. To be successful when tapering, you must lower your methadone dose slowly and safely.

The goal is to do it without experiencing any withdrawal. To continue living your dream life with no roadblocks.

When done correctly, getting off of methadone can be done rather easily.

Comments

I am currently at 140 and am going down 5mgs a week the reason I am getting off methadone is I metabolize it quickly and was at 150 and that wasn’t holding me and I simply do not want to keep going up it is better to get off the stuff, I have changed my diet and am eating more natural foods and taking vitamins and started walking and will begin working out soon. protein drinks are helpful and cheaper than eating meals all the time. I am a little shaky sometimes but I will stop for a week if I need or when I need to so I won’t make the mistake of having to go up again. The most important thing I have done is to pray and have a strong faith in Jesus who is my savior and will help me to succeed. If you have any ideas or advice that you think would help please email them to me.
Respectfully
rich

I’m stabalized at 130mgs for only 90 days. I was addicted to prescription pain pills for years. I feel great but am having quite a few stomach adversions to the meds.
BUT– my life has changed for the better. I left what I thought was my dream job as a bartender earlier this year and just now received news that I landed a job in a entirely different career field and one that I can be proud of.
I tried so many times to get off of the pills myself to no avail. I can honestly say that methadone saved my life. but now that I have stabilized I feel so strongly about getting off of it so that I am entirely substance-free. I also want to quit smoking. Should I do this before tapering off of the methadone or while I’m tapering? I do not want to go into my thirties with any type of substance in my body. I plan on doing the 2 mg for 5 weeks and then 4 weeks off taper. Slow and steady wins the race. I can’t wait until I can say it’s over and until I can prove everyone in my family that judges me for taking this wrong! Victory will be mine! Muahahahah lol

Thanks for this article! I’m currently at 13 mgs down from 85. I am going 1 mg every two weeks. I’ve been doing this slow taper once I detoxed down to 30 mg. Before I was going a little faster. Not much longer to go!

I’m tapering 1 mg a week, since the beginning of June, this year.
In the past I’ve done it much faster, (3 times to be exact)and at that time I felt I was ready, but looking back now, I clearly wasn’t, and when I say that I mean as far as my education regarding this subject.
The last time I tapered was 2013. So it took me a while to feel ready again.
I’m thinking about starting a daily journal as I follow through with this.
I too, have been eating much more healthier and taking other steps to fill in, in my life, that I had not tried in the past.
I’m just kind of taking it week by week at this point. Seeing how far I can safely get down on my dose without causing major disruption to me physically and most importantly mentally.

Nice and slow, that’s how you go to do it. You know your body and you know what’s best for you. Listen to yourself. And most importantly, don’t feed into what others say. People that have failed at tapering down and getting off methadone love to scare the shit out of people who are trying to get off of methadone and do it right. Ignore their chatter.

Keeping that in a journal would be a great idea. If you have the Get Your Shine On recovery journal than you know I periodically send out additional parts to go with the journal. I would be happy to make up some new journal pages for this specific reason. Let me know Katy!! Just email me. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your little ones!

My wife was on 30 mg for 8 or 9 years for chronic pain. RSD. Before that it was MS Contin for long time.
Since about 11-20, she’s been tapering pretty successfully after some row with pain clinic doctor.
Now we’re where the rubber meets the road. There are only a few pills left, and we’re cutting 5 mg pills, since there’s no doctor willing to help. Valerian root, CBD, a little THC. Looking at Kratom, but don’t know enuf about it.
She’s been doing 2.5 mg in morning and 2.5 mg in evening.
Today she starts 2.5 mg in the morning, 1.25 mg in evening.
Next week it will be 1.25 mg in the morning and 1.25 mg in the evening.
Then three days of 1.25 mg in the morning.
That’s all the pills.
She’s done very well, only general shitty feeling, and restless legs,
We’re not sure what to expect from here. Any thoughts?

Ok. I’m going to say a few things here. First, your wife is one hell of a woman. which I’m sure you already know lol. I hesitate to give my opinion on this simply because I am not a medical professional and 2nd, methadone use for pain management can be much different from people coming off of opiate addiction which is where I come in to play. For example, when we go to our methadone clinic. We typically start out at 40 mg per day and then people immediately feel they have to climb up to 100 mg or more to be ok. So when someone is on 100 mg and tapers down. They don’t experience any issues physically or mentally until they get in the 30 mg to 40 mg range. That is where the person is advised to taper slowly. Like very slowly. But 30 was her max so her situation is a bit different. Personally, I don’t know much about Kratom either but, I do know a few people who have had GREAT success with it. If you would like, I can find out more info about the Kratom from someone who has personal experience with it. Just let me know. I would need to know a bit more about the situation in its entirety to give an honest opinion. If you want to then You can email me at hello@unjunkiefied.com. If not, I wish you both the best.:) She got this.

Let’s Be Real. Your past sucked a big one. You hit rock bottom and now you need to rebuild your ENTIRE world. Not only do you want to live like a badass but, you want to have a successful future! Who doesn’t? That’s where I come in. It’s time for you to go from bad past to badass . I’ve been there and now it’s my duty to get you there too.

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